moonguardfandomcom-20200213-history
Noxvari Shadowstalker
Appearance The Lich King's many forms of cruelty are evident when Noxvari is used as an example. By nature she is tall for either gender of her race. At a commanding six and a half feet with the muscle tone to take down the meatiest of tauren, Noxvari is certainly no stranger to conflict and is definitely never a damsel in distress. Most frequently she is found in ornate saronite battle plate, all intricately designed with skulls and bones and spikes and typically very threatening designs, though there is something elegant about her war attire - something somehow beautiful, albeit in a dangerous kind of way. She also carries an ornate ebony and silver bow and quiver, hinting at skills past the standard death knight. Her bearing is cold, even domineering, and her presence is such that commands respect. Every move she makes is done with almost military precision, deliberate and controlled, and yet somehow graceful and fluid - even in the most heated throes of battle. There is something noble about the way she conducts herself, something high-class and elegant even in the way she kills, even when she does so methodically, automatically, simply because she was ordered to. But beneath the armor, she is surely a woman. She is lithe and sleek, and though toned, she is not nearly masculine. Her curves are not exaggerated but are enough to catch a man off-guard and tempt his eyes, and she does nothing to prevent this. Her pallid skin is smooth and free of scars and birthmarks and blemishes, all having been wiped clean from her skin at the time of her murder and subsequent reanimation. Though her features are beautiful, with smoothly angled lines and gently rounded curves making up the majority of her form, she is still a morbid picture of elegance.. The bluish tint to her otherwise white skin, white eyes, and black hair hint at her condition, standing to make her such an awful tease to the living man. So unfair - to be banished from life's pleasures, but still be subject to invitation. Personality Nox has gone through many, many personality shifts over the years. Presently, she is as you would expect her to be.. Cold. She has the bearing of a person who has experienced everything there is to experience in life, and she comes off bitter about it. Nox is not nice or sweet or loving. She is generally pretty solitary and quiet save when such a time arises that she should need to speak; she has no interest in the affairs of the living, like love, family, or the festive joys of life - food, drink, a comfortable bed, perhaps with someone to share it with.. Such things do not interest her. She is usually quite serious but has been known for times of icy humor or sarcastic joke; such times often come off as ill-natured, usually bitter, as her sarcastic jokes generally poke fun at her unliving condition. Nox is fiercely loyal, though the things she is loyal to are few. She has no loyalty for the Horde as a whole: Orgrimmar could burn to the ground and she would probably smile about it. She will, however, defend certain things with her very existance, the most obvious of which is the Dark Lady and the Forsaken. After them she has strong loyalties still to her old home of Quel'thalas, and though she will never publicly admit it, there are still great lengths to which she would go in defense of her elder brother. Other than these, however, she has no mental or emotional obligations to anyone or anything. Everything else simply goes in varying and increasing degrees of dislike. She is very assertive. Nox has mastered the art of issuing orders in such a way that at once commands respect and total obedience, else the consequences will be dire. Even to those who are not her direct subordinates, she has a nasty habit of talking down ''to them. Officers of Horde legions from the other side of the world are, in her eyes, inferior, and are treated as such - she will not recognize foreign authority, and will take it upon herself to act, at least for the most part, superior. Casual encounters can frequently be made awkward by this as she is such a firm personality, with such an immense ego . History Early Life Valia Lightstrider and Thad'melis Dawnrunner were a match made in heaven. The couple was young and enthusiastic. Though they were both proud individuals, they got on like bread and butter and were inseperably in love for some time. They both came from wealthy, upper class magic families based in ritzy Silvermoon City - both were skilled in the arcane arts, and Thad'melis had dabbled a time or two in studying demons. They were intelligent and enthusiastic, and successful - yes, wildly successful. When they married, there was a great party and much celebration and everyone was certain that they would have a great life together, including themselves. They let nobody down: the first decade of their marriage was beautiful, picture perfect, as fresh and new as if they had only just begun seeing one another. Ten years into their marriage, Valia became pregnant for the first time. The couple were ecstatic, and so were their families. When Mallevia Dawnrunner was born, there was more celebration, and everyone was quite certain that the little girl would make them proud someday. Just sixteen years after Mallevia's birth came the birth of their son, Nath'sin - and nineteen years after him, the third and final child, Lisele, was born. Life was good. The family was picture perfect. If it was in style in Silvermoon at the time, they'd have lived in a nice two-story house with a white picket fence and a Golden Retriever. The family was loving all around, well-liked in general, and there was never a thing the children wanted that they could not have. They were well learned from a young age and were growing up to be promising. Their parents encouraged them time and time again to practice magic, to see what they could do, experiment, and Mallevia and Nath'sin may have.. But Lisele never did. She couldn't. Adolescence At the tender age of thirty, Lisele was wandering the city when she came upon a bowyer crafting a bow. He was an older elf, with graying hair and a face lined with age. He was sitting outside his shop, carving a strip of wood into the general shape of a bow while whistling a quiet tune to himself, and when he looked up, Lisele was there, watching. He was a fatherly sort, eager to teach an inquiring mind, and so he did. He was a retired ranger and happy to tell Lisele everything he knew about the rangers and their arts while she sat and watched him craft this bow; she soaked up every word, and when he finished the bow - for it had been close to completion - he handed it to her and taught her to shoot it. She had not shot it twice when a boy not much older than she darted out of the shop, a boy who introduced himself as the bowyer's son: Anthil Therilon. He gleefully took the bow and fired it at a target, coming just a hair off-center. When he handed the bow back to Lisele, she, too, shot it at the target, unaided.. And she bested his shot by a noticeable amount. Hard to believe, then, that the two became fast friends, and that young Lisele found something fun and worth practicing. She and Anthil frequently went out into the woods near Silvermoon to hunt and practice their skill with the bow. Often they would find detachments of the ranger corps and they would stalk and follow and observe, and this did not come without punishment, at times, when they were caught. Lisele's parents were disapproving of this, as they were certain they wished to send her off to one of the magic academies outside the city, but as she came closer and closer to being of age, it became clearer and clearer that she, like her elder sister, would not be a mage after all. Mallevia had become a priestess, and it appeared as though Lisele was aiming to be a ranger, with a carefree, energetic lifestyle that went against everything that had ever been imprinted upon her, and she was a damn good shot. A Path in Life The day she came of age, Lisele went to the Farstriders. They had a long talk. They had a few more long talks over the next couple weeks, and then they started to test her. She passed every test they put before her with flying colors.. Every test but one, one they thought, given she is the daughter of two well-educated mages, would be the easiest for her to pass: fire an arrow imbued with magic. She failed. She couldn't do it - the magic wouldn't come to her. She could feel it, sure, the energy the Sunwell had been bleeding into her for years since her birth, slowly and surely building up deep within her, but when she tried to release it.. It was like it was blocked, incapable of leaving her, despite how desperately she wished for it to. For this one flaw, she was denied and sent home empty-handed. Her parents had barely tolerated this desire of hers', but upon finding out she simply could not do magic, they did all but disown her. She was ousted from the house and written out of wills all across the family tree; her brother, with whom she had always shared a great bond, tried very hard to make her friends abandon her, and her sister, who had forever been jealous of her, became more catty than ever. Lisele was not worried for their reactions, honestly. What she was worried about was how Anthil would think of her - he had been accepted to the corps, no questions asked. To her great surprise, he did not shun her or turn away from her. No, quite the opposite. The two became an official 'item' on the evening of her rejection, something the boueyed her through the next couple weeks. The next couple weeks were relatively uneventful.. Her family was a pain in the ass - for lack of a better term - but she paid them no mind, having something new to focus on. Maybe three weeks passed when she was summoned by one of the captains of the ranger corps - even though, given her 'handicap,' she could never truly be a ''ranger, there was always room for a sniper among their numbers. And so, she became a sniper - a deadshot - and perfected her archery under the careful guidance of some of Quel'thalas's most skilled bowmen. The Second War Her job was a simple one. Protect the borders, kill the trolls, keep the people safe. It was easy, too, for her - very easy. Over time her family's bitterness subsided to the point where they would not completely ignore her; they never returned to being warm or welcoming, but they did eventually acknowledge she still existed. Her brother was spiteful, however, and upon hearing of Anthil's relationship with Lisele - and subsequent engagement just a few short years later - he tried so hard to break them up. Anthil was unphased by Nath'sin's efforts and was nothing but a dream to Lisele, a perfect gentleman, the sort of guy any girl would want to get with. To say she felt lucky to have him would be an understatement. Time went on. Years passed, all was well... And then the formation of the Alliance of Lordaeron and the coming of the Horde. Lisele had no part in the high elves' original involvement, but when it was discovered that the Amani trolls were aiding the Horde encroach on the borders of Quel'thalas, she was called on to go to war for the first time in her life. Being as young and green as she was, battling the combined armies of the orcs and the trolls was a harrowing experience, but she dutifully served with an amount of courage and valor that not even she knew she had. In fighting the orcish Horde and the Amani, she developed a strong hatred for both races, one that still stands today. It surprised even her when she survived the conflict, having seen her kin torn limb from limb and their corpses desecrated in unimaginable ways.. And though she had these images burned into her mind, she was hardly any worse for the wear, both physically and mentally. In fact, she matured quite a bit on the battlefield, and would later say that the sounds of war, specifically the sounds of a dying foe, were some of the most relaxing ones she'd ever heard. Anthil, who had been called to war for only a short period of time (whereas Lisele was on the field nearly the whole time the elves were involved) had developed a strong relationship with the Light in Lisele's absense. Shortly after the war ended, he and Lisele took a trip to Lordaeron. Sometime during that trip, they stopped in Stratholme.. where Anthil found his true ''calling as a Knight of the Silver Hand. Coming of the Scourge It was a day off. She and Anthil were both in Silvermoon this day, sitting in the dining area of their quaint little home in the western side. Over the past few weeks, Anthil had been urging Lisele to consider leaving the city - perhaps to a village close to the border of Lordaeron, where it was quiet and where neither of them would have to travel too far. This morning in particular he was suggesting it again, but Lisele stubbornly refused to budge on the topic. Their arguments were never loud, never violent. They were exceptionally understanding with one another, and in this case, it was Anthil who was practicing extraordinary patience with the subject matter. After briefly discussing the option, they changed subject and continued to enjoy a quiet breakfast. It was a beautiful day, even as far as the beautiful days in Quel'thalas go - the sort of day you just ''can't ''spend inside, and so they didn't. It was close to time for lunch and they were walking the city when, quite suddenly, there was a great commotion and flurry of action along the walls surrounding the city, immediately followed by panicked shouting. Shortly after that, it seemed like the entire city had dissolved into a mess of noise and chaos. Bells were ringing, alarms were sounding, and people were running about like chickens with their heads cut off, grabbing weapons and armor and stowing away their wives and children. Silvermoon was under attack. Anthil and Lisele rushed back to their home, and in the span of only a couple minutes, he was fully suited in war attire. She had barely moved to grab her bow when he took a hold of her and demanded she stay there, not to follow him, to just stand down - he had a bad feeling about this. She quietly agreed, but once he had ridden out of sight of the house, she too was out the door and rushing to the defense of the city. We all know what happens next. Long story short: Scourge victory. The defenders fought valiantly, Lisele included. She fought for as long as she could, fighting against what seemed like an endless swarm of the undead until. She knew there was no way this was going to be a victory.. This fact was only reiterated after watching a number of people she personally knew - including Anthil - fall to the wretched undead. Seeing everything she knew fall to pieces around her made her fight with everything she had, even after becoming grievously wounded - despite the pain she battled on for as long as she could, until she was cornered. She was ready to die honorably, weapons in hand, fighting to the death, when quite suddenly she was snatched away from where she'd been staged. She barely had the chance to realize it was her brother who had grabbed her out from the grasp of the Scourge, all decked out in shimmering golden plate as he was.. And then he was practically dragging her away, fleeing as quickly as he could with her in tow. Though she tried to object, he did not allow it - he forced her into hiding with a few other elves who realized it was no good, and they stayed shut up in perhaps the tiniest, most inconspicuous cellar of all time. Lisele and Nath'sin survived like this. She did not know how long it took for the battle overhead to cease. Could've been hours.. days.. It felt like an eternity. It never really sunk in while she was hiding there in the dark - y'know, what was happening overhead. She just sort of sat there in a mentally disengaged state, held fast by her brother so she did not attempt to bolt up into the city. When the sound of the battle overhead stopped and all that was left was silence and the crackling of flame, those elves hiding out in the cellar emerged to find the city unrecognizeable. It was one of the most sickening, scarring sights - the image of bodies, of corpses ''everywhere, of blood splattered all over.. It was an image that burned into the deepest part of her mind, of her conscience, and yet she still didn't truly realize what happened. Dreamlike, she, Nath'sin, and the others searched for other survivors. They found one who was horribly wounded but no others, only bodies.. Some were unrecognizeable, either burned or torn apart, reduced to a bloody pulp.. Some bodies were never recovered - among them, Anthil. Late at night, Lisele and Nath and a small band of other suvivors made it out of the fallen city to find another small group in the forest, all visibly distrought. It was here, in this forest clearing, with what appeared to be the only remaining people of Quel'thalas, that Lisele's mind finally realized what had just occurred. She just fell apart mentally, broke down, just completely lost her will to go on and live. And then, when the sun rose the next morning, all she knew was a blinding rage. The Road to Revenge Her rage grew and grew as the death toll did. As it was discovered all of their nation's most important people, save for the Prince, were dead or missing, Lisele's anger only intensified.. And as soon as she had a name for who was responsible - that damned Prince Arthas - she had a target. She had something to focus her rage on. She had a goal. It was clear what had to be done: he must die. When Kael came, Lisele was one of the first to jump into his ranks as one of the newly-christened 'blood elves.' She abandoned her old, familiar position of archer and took on a more hands-on approach to combat as a foot soldier. Nath graciously taught her the ins and outs of swordsmanship, and fueled by her rage, she was a quick study and was a capable melee fighter in no time at all. She tirelessly labored under the Prince's command, sure that her efforts would, sooner or later, result in retribution. She faithfully followed Kael'thas to Outland and back - literally - in the name of revenge, discovering that murder really could ''be her thing. Leaving the Alliance? Bah, who needs 'em. Allying with naga? Not the worst thing ever. Working for Illidan and therefore indirectly working for Kil'jaeden? Who ''cares, the guy wants the Lich King destroyed before Arthas ''gets to 'im. She suffered through every injustice, every poor decision, every lost battle, and worst of all the withdrawal from the Sunwell's energies purely by the power of her rage. So, she thinks, camped out there in Northrend, this is it. Arthas is going to die. Perhaps she may not get the killing blow, but he's going to die. She fought the armies of the Scourge ''again, ''fighting tooth and nail to push them back, to destroy them as best she could, hoping someone could catch Prince Arthas and kill him. Even as the others fell around her - demons, naga, and blood elves alike - she fought on, mercilessly cutting down any zombie that stood up to her. But the Scourge won again, and Arthas' soul fused with Ner'zhul's. Defeated, she retreated with the rest of the fighting force back to Outland. She was sent away to help guard the Black Temple in Shadowmoon. Her rage was stronger than ever following this defeat. More of her people had died for nothing. ''Nothing. ''It had all been a waste, and now Arthas was, well.. The Lich King. It didn't take long for her to realize that Kael'thas was comfortable in Tempest Keep. It didn't take long for her to realize that there would be no second assault on Icecrown - there would be no pursuit of vengeance. Kael was more interested in colonizing Outland and killing Draenei and stuff. While Lisele truly had no qualms with killing Draenei or their Broken cousins, really, the blue-bloods would not satisfy her need to kill those that were already dead. So she grabbed Nath'sin and returned to Silvermoon at the first opportunity. Shadowstalker Nath'sin stayed in Silvermoon and joined up with the Blood Knights, seeking to refamiliarize himself with the powers he had lost. Lisele, on the other hand, realized she would never be able to look at the city the same - the wounds were still fresh and raw, and the city had not healed either.. So she left, again, looking for answers. She headed south this time, south through what is now known as the Ghostlands, through the Plaguelands. She didn't know what she was looking for at this point, just that she needed to find something.. anything. She scoured as much of the plagued remnants of Lordaeron as she could but quickly realized that the place was infested with the undead, and while she had nothing against killing them, there were enough to pose a personal threat to her - and she wanted to see Arthas die. She couldn't if she was dead. She had not quite reached where the present-day Bulwark is when she was confronted by three undead humans, all of them heavily armored and bearing themselves in an intelligent way, quite unlike every other zombie she'd ever met. Still, she was not ready to accept the idea of intelligent undead, so she attacked them.. and they overwhelmed her with little effort. In fact, they laughed at her as she raged at them, trying her best to kill them though they were quick to bind her hands and disarm her. Next thing she knew, she was being held captive at the Bulwark, where a small crowd of them were eyeing her with looks that might be fitting for prey. She had come to the conclusion that they were going to kill her when one of them approached. He looked pretty important, dressed up in raggedy leather with a lot of silver and tassels and such. She was surprised to see so much detail in his armor.. Even more so when he crouched in front of her with a toothy grin and said in perfect Thalassian, "''Bal'a dash, quel'dorei." Aye, he'd once been a high elf - didn't remember his name at all - but it was he who explained that these undead were not Scourge, but those that had been freed from it and were now operating in direct opposition to it. He explained to her all the basics about them, how most of them were former residents of Lordaeron, with some high elves thrown in, and how they were led by Lady Sylvanas Windrunner, who'd liberated them from the Lich King's control. Lisele immediately demanded to be brought to the Undercity. For a living elf, she fit in surprisingly well. Despite a slew of bad habits that frequently hindered her ability to perform to any level of acceptability - magic addiction is painful, you know - she was quickly snatched up by the Deathstalkers for training as a rogue. To this day she is not sure why they took interest in her, but they were determined to make a rogue out of her despite the rapid shortening of her fuse, no doubt brought on by time out of combat. Training began and it was an utter failure - she was a hundred different kinds of unruly, so much so that the trainers she'd been working with gave up on her. Varimathras discovered firsthand what an insolent bitch she could be and promptly ordered the Deathstalkers to cease the project entirely. For her insubordination, she was imprisoned - six days deep in the dungeons of the Undercity, freezing her ass off and withdrawing severely. On the seventh day she was removed from the cell she'd been held in and brought before the Dark Lady herself. Sylvanas almost certainly knew that Lisele, who had served faithfully in Quel'thalas for decades, would be easily manipulated - but only by her. She took advantage of this and just a couple short days later, Lisele was once again in training, though this time not with the Deathstalkers, but with a royal guard who was practiced in the roguely techniques. Lisele was shockingly well-behaved and was rewarded: she again learned fast, fueled by the prospect of slaying the Scourge, and in no time was sent to the Plaguelands for more hands-on training. She was a successful rogue. It was after a particularly ballsy mission in the Eastern Plaguelands that they began to refer to her as Shadowstalker. Pleased with this new moniker, she adopted it and fully accepted her new life as a rogue at the direct command of Sylvanas. Northrend Lisele was on the first ship to Northrend. While the rest of the world was ..saving the world in Outland and beating Kil'jaeden back from the Sunwell, Lisele was researching. Before any official expedition to Northrend was launched, she was there, observing the wildlife, the native peoples, and most of all, the undead inhabitants. Aye, before the Lich King even launched an attack on the major cities of Azeroth, Lisele was snooping around the Dragonblight, eyes peeled and writing extensive mental notes. She noted a sudden increase in the amount of Scourge activity immediately prior to the invasion that put the Lich King back at the forefront of the world-domination scene, and whole-heartedly supported the decision to take the battle back to the Lich King. Her extensive research on the members of the Scourge - the different beings involved and their heirarchy and preferred combat style, specifically - granted her a significant promotion. She went right to the front lines, beginning an assault against the Scourge forces gathered in the Dragonblight. The information she provided from the frontlines was valuable and aided the planning of collaborative efforts with the Argent Crusade. She was reporting in the Undercity at the time of the Wrathgate and the uprising of the rebels; she hung around the Undercity for a short while following the battle that took place there, and once the dust had settled, she went to Northrend once more. This time, she went to Icecrown. A Fatal Mistake She'd underestimated the power the Scourge could summon in the span of only a few minutes. Lisele and her force were locked in a heated confrontation with what had at first appeared to be little more than a small and easily managed group of mindless undead. What had at first seemed easily controlled, however, grew. And grew. And grew. And though Lisele was a fine leader, her force was quickly outnumbered and overwhelmed as the undead practically crawled out of the ground, cutting down her comrades until only she and a handful of others remained. When there were too few to put up a real resistance, the leaders of the Scourge army took captive Lisele and three others. What ones hadn't been captured were killed on the spot. Those that had were packed up and taken into the bowels of Icecrown Citadel. Hard to say how long she was there for. She was kept in a room deep underground with only dim artificial blue light. Here, she was questioned on the goings-on of some of the forces opposing the Lich King, and when she refused to speak voluntarily, she was given to the custody of one of the death knights taking residence at the Citadel. He also interrogated her, though he tried to get her to speak by using physical pain as a motivator. She knew that either way, whether she spoke or not, they were going to kill her, and while she regretted that she wouldn't live to see the Lich King fall, she refused to loosen her tongue for the Scourge's benefit. The death knight took glee in physically torturing the rogue, who stood up to it surprisingly well and never let her questioner have the pleasure of hearing her scream. The death knight grew bored. Eventually he was forced to concede that she would not speak, so he handed her over to a devious lich. The lich had no interest in interrogating her. No, his only purpose was to make her lose her mind. He did, for the most part, succeed. By warping her memories and defiling her very soul itself, he was able to weaken her mind to a point that made her vulnerable. Lisele was able to preserve enough of her sanity to hold close what information was most vital to her, but much of her knowledge was forcibly taken by the lich. When he had extracted all he could from her mind and soul, Lisele served no further purpose to the Scourge as one of the living. So, the lich tore the soul from her body, while she was still very much conscious and alive to feel it. Rebirth For three days, she was nothing. Her soul was kept contained and prevented from forming an incorporeal being, like a banshee. For these three days she had no idea what was going on, only that occasionally there would be a shift in the way she thought, and periods where she seemed to not think at all. At the end of the third day, she had one such time - her mind went completely blank. The next thing she knew, she was opening her eyes - true, solid, existing eyes - and could feel cold steel beneath her, and light robes covering her. Her wrists and ankles were shackled down, though she did not, at the time, see why. As Lisele lay there, looking around the dimly-lit room, a death knight approached from one of her sides. He asked her one simple question: "To whom do your loyalties lie?" And she gave him one simple answer, one that came to her without a modicum of thought, like she was pre-programmed to say it and could choose no other words but these: "I serve the Lich King." And so she did. In the days following she was groomed and trained to be a fierce combatant and more than capable necromancer. She excelled in all that the Scourge tried to teach her; her mind absorbed every lesson like a sponge that was never full. The intelligent undead called her Noxvari, and it was the only name she recognized. She was given a fake past, told she had willingly joined the cause for she was in awe of the Lich King's power and wanted a taste of what he could provide. She had no will to believe otherwise, and so it was. Under the careful guidance of the most senior members of the Scourge existing in the citadel, she was taught to hate humanity, to hate the living, but more than everything, she was taught to hate the Forsaken. The lich that had sifted through her mind priod to her death had not missed her close ties, and thought it fun to warp them. When she was ready, when she could best any opponent put before her, she was sent out to bring chaos on the resistance forces scattered across Icecrown. Noxvari was an absolute monster about it: the first few attacks came and went and she left no survivors, but eventually, the idea came to her - or more rightly, was given to her - to leave just one survivor to bring word back. This she began to do, and in no time, her victims started throwing themselves at her, no doubt seeking a large reward for her capture or death. They did not succeed. Icecrown became boring. For a change of scenery, she was sent south, to the Dragonblight again, where she gleefully terrorized camps and settlements of both the Alliance and the Horde. In one such attack, she set upon a small camp of Forsaken just a few miles from Venomspite. The hatred that had been imprinted upon her was strong, and so she meant to kill all of them, to not leave any to tell of her deeds, but as she was about to strike the last apothecary down she stopped. She hesitated. For a moment, just the briefest moment, she felt a hint of humanity - remorse, even, followed by a ton of jumbled thoughts. She decided to spare the woman. Four days later, as she was about to come down hard on a small settlement, she was ambushed by a group of Forsaken, and, more importantly, a gaseous sedative, which they generously sprayed upon her. Rendered pretty much useless by the effects of the chemical, they blindfolded her and tied her up in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, then drove off with her. When the lethargy wore off and the blindfold was removed, Nox was chained up in what appeared to be a dungeon of sorts. Across the room was a pair of Forsaken men, both peering at her with severe looks. They had not said a word since they had joined her in this room; nay, they had just crouched and stared, and stared.. and stared.. And for a while, she stared back, unable to say a word, as no words came to her.. And then, quite suddenly, they did. With a violent movement, she swung one arm but got it caught hard on the chains, accompanied with a growled, "What are you looking at, you pathetic little men?" To which one of them replied with a great grin, "You, Lisele Shadowstalker. You." The next three weeks were spent in that cell, without a glance at the outside world. She had no idea where she was.. And, quite frankly, no idea who these people were save for being Forsaken. The voices in her head were beginning to confuse her, especially with the Forsaken coming to her at all hours of the day and night, doing their damn best to break her mind.. Or better, the mind she thought was her own. At times, when they presented her with evidence of the existance of this Lisele, her mind felt jumbled, confused, like there was almost a legitimate possibility this woman was her.. And then those thoughts would abandon her. The grip of the Lich King was strong on her mind, and realizing they had done little, if anything, to break her - though they had issued quite a bit of physical pain - the Forsaken sedated and blindfolded her again, and she was again transported elsewhere. When her sense returned to her and she was allowed her vision again, she was again in a place she did not recognize.. But as soon as she looked up, she was smote with something hot, something that burned, something that ''hurt ''unlike any hurt she'd ever felt before. There was a pause and as she was about to lash out - for she was unbound - there was a flash of golden light and another searing pain as again she was struck with another blast of the same hot magic. This enraged her, and so she moved to strike her attacker, only to be smote again, and again, and again - every time she rose to fight back she was forcefully rejected by powerful shocks of holy magic. It took a while before she realized that before her was standing a Crusader, all done up in shiny silver plate, looking solemn and serious. And that is how it went. The Crusader was relentless. When she had stopped rising to fight him he began calmly trying to talk her out of the Lich King's will - and when she became enraged and tried to strike again, he pushed her back once more with the same holy power he had been using earlier. The magic softened her a little over time, and his words did eventually begin to wiggle into the cracks of her mental armor. She began to doubt, and then wonder.. Return ..and then she was standing before Sylvanas again, liberated of mind, body, and soul. The combined efforts of the Hand of Vengeance and the Argent Crusade had freed her mind and siphoned away the last vestiges of the Lich King's control. Her tale was told and retold many times and once it was certain that she was capable of her own thought, even if mentally fragile, she was permitted to walk free again. The first place she went os back to the Undercity to return to the Dark Lady's service - this time, as one of her own people. She decided to keep the name the Scourge gave her, Noxvari, coupled with the name the Forsaken had given her, and so Noxvari Shadowstalker was born. In an effort to prove herself worthy of being reaccepted, Nox led a number of successful assaults on the Scourge, and with past history and loyalty considered, she earned a new title for herself: High Executor. Nox remained loyal even after the Fall of the Lich King. Her old hatreds remain and being allied with the rest of the Horde still bothers her on some inner level, but due to her rank and how frequently she is expected to interact with Orgrimmar's finest, she has had to master the art of subtlety.. again. She recently has been practicing necromancy, going so far as to read works written by Kel'thuzad and other bigname Scourge reanimators on the subject. When not leading expeditions out into the furthest reaches of the Forsaken territory, she can frequently be found practicing her new crafts, occasionally for the pleasure of tight-lipped spectators. Mount Nox is rarely seen without her mount nearby. For a time, she had ridden a warhorse given to her by the Forsaken. However, at the time of her capture, her horse was killed on the glacier and left there. No Death Knight is complete without a mount, and unsurprisingly, there just happened to be one that suited her nearby. At the time of his birth, the colt was named Ithrandil. He was born deep in the southernmost reaches of Quel'thalas, not far from the pass leading into the Eastern reaches of Lordaeron. He had been selectively bred: sired by one of the finest elven stallions ever to serve the high elves, and out of a mare who had served well herself but was more well known for having been sired by a great stallion bred by the humans at the Balnir Farmstead in Tirisfal. It was believed that the blood of the humans' horses would temper the frequent skittishness found in the fine elven horses, and if Ithrandil's dam was any indicator, this was true. Ithrandil had been born black as the midnight sky; he was a well put together foal with features just like his sire's, but a hair sturdier from the quarter he'd gotten from the thicker human stock. He was a handsome foal that grew into an awkward yearling, and then a beautiful two year old, and finished growing a couple years later as a handsome, elegant stallion standing at a stately 18 hands. Unbroken at the age of four, Ithrandil spent most of his time intelligently peering across the yard at the mares and watching the elves ride past in their carriages. The days drew on without event until, quite suddenly, everything changed. Suddenly, his usual people never came to see him anymore - instead, Ithrandil was visited by a young high elf man, who took delight in bonding with the young stallion and breaking him to ride, a process which he was surprisingly receptive of. And then one day, when Ithrandil had finished being trained by this high elf man, they rode off together. They rode south and then west, through rolling hills and fertile farmland until coming upon a large city: Stratholme. Suddenly, Ithrandil was no longer just some handsome stallion standing out in a grassy field. He was the most trusted steed of a Knight of the Silver Hand, and true to tradition, Ithrandil was renamed to comemorate this. He was given the name Valor by his new owner and rider, Anthil Therilon. Valor matured handsomely. As the years passed, his body faded from jet black to a pearly white, but his legs, his mane, his tail, and much of his face remained dark as night. He aged well, sharing the longevity of his rider's people, and became loyal and trustworthy as all paladin mounts should be. Valor and Anthil could communicate with little more than a thought at times - a mental nudge and the stallion would be off to carry his rider wherever he must go. Valor was old by the standards of normal horses by the time of the Third War, but his breeding ensured that even when he ought to have been retired, he galloped on, unhindered by age. On the day the Scourge attacked Silvermoon, Valor bravely carried Anthil to the city gates, where the battle was already raging. It took a number of assaults from spears and swords and axes to get the stallion to fall, as he eventually did before the Scourge. The Scourge, however, was a resourceful machine, and a fallen horse could at some point be useful for one thing or another. Valor was reanimated thusly, just a few short hours after he died. For the next several years, Valor was ridden by a number of different servants of the Lich King. He never had a bonded rider in undeath, but was used for all sorts of things despite this. When Noxvari was reanimated - created, even - it was with many of her memories in mind. Every Death Knight gets their own mount eventually.. It seemed only fitting that she should get ''this ''one, a horse with whom she was already very familiar in life. Unsurprisingly, the two formed a tight mental bond that persisted through Nox's liberation, and though Valor is a reminder of one of the many things she lost in life, the horse is a faithful companion. Category:Blood Elf Category:Horde Death Knight Category:Death Knight